This 1936 photo of a cocktail room stopped me dead in my tracks. (Yes, we can just stop the post right here. A cocktail room. How utterly fantastic and so very civilized. I'm going to call my living room a cocktail room from now on because it is where the cocktails are drunk in my home.) Everything about this room sums up what I love best: Chinoiserie; a mural; cocktails; a dark floor (perhaps linoleum or some type of composite?) with what appears to be metal inlay.
The mural was painted by Allyn Cox, famous for his murals at the US Capitol. You may also remember my post about the Peacock Mansion here in Atlanta with its Allyn Cox mural in the dining room (see below). How I wish the cocktail room photo were in color, but here is a description of the room:
A corner of a cocktail room in a house in Glencoe, Illinois, with murals by Allyn Cox. The background is pale yellow, the figures are a luminous blue-white, with black touches in hair and shoes. The room itself is done in grey, with splashes of vermilion.
Perfection. Enough said.
The dining room of the Goodrum House (aka the Peacock Mansion) with its Allyn Cox mural.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Perfection
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The black & white photos are always so evocative for me. I too love the notion of a cocktail room! Why did they have it so RIGHT back in the 30s?
ReplyDeleteThat dining room mural is really just utterly amazing.
Stefan- No kidding! I think we should bring back the cocktail room :)
ReplyDeleteIt's probably similar to a walk in bar today - where there is a large counter and bar stools. But still- I suppose the old houses had so many little rooms they had to name them all something! The murals are incredible!
ReplyDeleteA cocktail room...I am up for that. xv
ReplyDeleteI so agree with AD's comment about the 30's and what was that perfect storm that brought great design in everything? An astonishing time, really. A cocktail room you should have. A place where it is happy at least once a day!
ReplyDeleteIt was really an age of sophistication- for a certain segment of society, of course. Elegant and luxurious.
ReplyDeleteMy grandmother lived across the side street from the Peacock House and the peacocks would come over to visit us sometimes to our great excitement. I am delighted to hear that the Watson-Brown Foundation has bought the house with the intention to save and restore it. Didn't Allyn Cox also paint murals in the Calhoun House in Atlanta?
ReplyDeleteI do really think that I need one of those "cocktail rooms"....where I can luxurious recline and be served on silver trays by a butler dressed in tails and two afghans at my side. (In truth I would settle for a great cleaning person and ironed sheets) But it is off to navigate the LA traffic.....and dream. Thanks for the wonderful post and have a super week.
ReplyDeleteI want to be sitting there with some stylish drink and smoking w/a long holder! Divine!
ReplyDeleteAllyn Cox did the most wonderful murals for the Anne Vanderbilt house in New York City, decorated by Elsie de Wolfe. He was a very well-connected guy, having married into the big-time Potter family and was related by marriage to the architect William Adams Delano and also Pauline de Rothschild. Somebody should produce a book or at least a lengthy article about Cox and his work. It was magical.
ReplyDeleteDoes anyone remember the Chinoiserie style in indigo blue paint on silver leaf Allyn Cox murals in the dining room at 603 Park Avenue in New York? This address is the famed un-saleable 1920 Thomas Howell house by Cross & Cross that was the Kips Bay shw hse many times over. Maybe it was around 1988 when the Cox murals (and a Philip Johnson room) were still intact....they were AMAZING!! I think they may have appeared in a magazine of the period in the 20s or 30s?
ReplyDeleteI'm not familiar with 603 Park Ave, but obviously we need to round up photos of Cox murals. How beautiful they are! And yes, there is another one here in Atlanta at the Calhoun House.
ReplyDeleteAnon 3:26- if you find out where we can find photos, please let us know. I'd love to see them.
I live in Glencoe, Illinois, but I haven't yet come across this room. I will keep looking!
ReplyDeleteI think the old pics of 603 park were in one of those HG annuals or House Beautiful? Of course the Molyneux Kips Bay interior might be in his archives or may have been shot by the Times or one of decor magazines in the 80s.
ReplyDeleteI think the "drinks room" MIGHT have been by Samuel Marx in the very stylish Gerhard Foreman house which was in Glencoe- as you posted. Marx used almost the same Chinese fret work mirror backed door surrounds for the the Max Epstein house in Hubbard Woods (near Glencoe). It too had a metal inlay floor but in this case it had a traditional chinese paper.
Anon- You are a wealth of information! I'll take a look through my trove of old magazines and HG annuals to see if I can find out any more info. I'll let you know if I do. Although, you obviously know far more than I!
ReplyDeleteJennifer-Chinoiserie and cocktails-what more does one need?
ReplyDeleteThere is a really great one- because its so 30s, simple and doable in the book 100 Most Beautiful Rooms In America by Helen Comstock. I cant remember the name of the house but I believe its a house in the south.
ReplyDeleteOR the little chinese brackets over the doors in the drawing room at Gunston Hall are super and also fairly simple.
I think you are on to something putting this type of thing wether painted or wooden in your modern apt.!
Anon- Realized that you meant your comment for the door post. The Comstock book has been on my wishlist for years; your comment has spurred me on to finally buy it. Can't wait to see the photo- and the other photos as well. The beauty of some late 60s condo buildings-some, not all mind you- is that the rooms are blank boxes; you can do with them as you wish. And I wish for a door like Shutze's!
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